


Drift

by the_nerdiestwitch



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Ghost Drifting, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Jaeger Pilots, Jaegers (Pacific Rim), Post-Operation Pitfall (Pacific Rim), Raleigh Becket & Mako Mori Friendship, The Drift (Pacific Rim), set post-war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 19:41:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16540925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_nerdiestwitch/pseuds/the_nerdiestwitch
Summary: No one really knows what the Drift is, but everyone knows what it's not





	Drift

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what this is supposed to be, but I think it's about drifting and voices in your head and not being alone

The war ended, and the sea was no longer a thing to fear. Mako had been afraid of the impossibly deep blue ever since the monsters emerged, but monsters didn’t exist anymore. She let her legs dangle, for once without the prickle of alarm that came with the bobbing water. Raleigh sat opposite her, head bowed, eyes closed. He wasn’t praying; she knew that somehow. It was simply exhaustion and relief and sadness and joy. She knew that too. She felt the same.

Helicopters roared overhead, a whole mass of them, large, unwieldy geese in a haphazard V-formation. Raleigh looked up, blinking away the sea spray from his eyes. They were a welcome sight for two castaways drifting at sea. But something in him was disappointed they’d come. It meant breaking the dream he and Mako shared where the war was over and they never had to face the outside world. Mako shifted closer next to him, not touching, but close enough. It was her disappointment, he knew. The dream was a drift where no one had died, no jaegers were lost. It was simply the expansive blue sky above and endless blue sea beyond.

It was nearly midday by the time the heroes of the hour were brought in. By that time, the party was in full swing. Mako and Raleigh were immediately mobbed by the Shatterdome crew who pushed just for a glimpse of the pilots who’d closed the breach for good. But through it all, the pair never left each other’s sides for a second. When the crowd finally backed off, they stood off to the side, not quite touching, but close enough. Mako tried her best to enjoy the celebrations. They’d won, after all, there was no need for jaegers or the shatterdome or pilots. The kaiju were gone. She should be happy. She looked at Raleigh at her side and saw in his eyes the same thing. They left quietly once all the attention had slipped from them.

Raleigh was coated in sweat and probably more than a little oxygen deprived, but he stripped his armor in pieces on the way to the training room. Shoes last, lined up neatly to the side of the mat. Across from him, Mako did the same. Bare feet slid onto the cool bamboo floor, calming Raleigh’s swirling mind. The clink of bottles and shouts on the deck below was matched by the even crack of wooden staffs and grunts of exertion. It was a conversation, not a fight, but neither of them dialed back. Not now, not ever.

Of course, the myths about pilots being able to read each other’s minds was ridiculous, but both Mako and Raleigh would swear they could feel each other in those hours and days following the battle. Mako might turn to point out a piece of technology to Raleigh only to realize he wasn’t there; Raleigh would throw another swing at the gym’s punching bag and hear Mako’s voice criticizing his form despite being alone. Drift compatibility was a piece of technology, nothing more, and that was the official story, but anyone who watched knew the truth.

\------------------------------

The war ended and the room exploded. Friends and strangers grabbed each other, held them close, laughed and shouted with sheer relief. Down below on the deck, the mood was much the same. Tools were abandoned in favor of long-hidden bottles of beer and vodka and sake and a thousand other drinks. Even the sky itself seemed to celebrate; the once-cloudy, shivering cold turned into an expanse of pure, bright blue that matched the endless sea. 

Hercules Hanson, red-eyed and thick-voiced, stayed and celebrated. He passed out congratulations and turned a blind eye to the alcohol and welcomed the incoming pilots with a smile and a handshake. He did everything a marshall should; he did his duty. And then when the celebration was in full swing, Hercules Hanson left quietly to his room and locked the door.  
It wasn’t his room anymore, of course. Everything was up in arms, but as acting marshall, his room would be moved closer to his office. But that wasn’t his office either, it was Stacker’s office. No amount of plaques or papers or framed photos on the desk would change it. 

That said, he was glad it wasn’t his room- if any part of him could be glad. It hadn’t been his room, to begin with. From day one, he’d shared it with his co-pilot, his partner, his son. Neither of them was neat, but anyone could distinguish one side from the others. Herc’s side had plenty of clothes strewn over the bed and the floor, but his uniform hung clean and pressed on the otherwise bare wall. Chuck was even worse with his laundry; even his uniform wasn’t spared the indignity of being wrinkled up in the corner. Scattered up and down his walls were posters of bands and retired pilots and, despite Herc’s protests, a pinup girl or two. Herc hated those posters and had asked Chuck a million times to take them down. Now he hated them even more.  
There was a bottle under Chuck’s bed; a vintage lager he’d been saving for the end. Technically there were two. One for Chuck and one for his dad. As Stacker’s second in command, Herc refused to even acknowledge the illegally stashed booze, but Chuck had brought it all the same. Herc stared at the bottles, one in each hand, and then threw one as hard as he could against the smirking woman above Chuck’s bed. The brown stain spread down her face, warping it into something less attractive and more monstrous. 

Chuck’s voice immediately shouted at him for wrecking his poster. They’d agreed that their halves of the room were separate, and if Chuck wanted to plaster his side with an alternative to giant, ugly metal faces than dammit that’s what he was going to do.  
“I’m sorry,” Hercules muttered, already reaching for the paper towels, but before the words even left his mouth he realized he was apologizing for so much more.  
Jaeger pilots couldn’t hear each other outside the drift, and any sane scientist would say that they definitely couldn’t be heard after they died, but Herc Hansen would very much beg to differ.

\------------------------------

The war ended and the clock stopped. Hermann was the model of professional conduct, emotions always in check (despite what Newton might say), but before he knew it he’d been pulled into his lab partner’s infectious embrace. And, surprisingly, he didn’t mind at all. He needed to let loose a little, he thought suddenly, they’d just won a war after all. Hermann didn’t know what came over him to even suggest something like that-Newt was usually the one to slack off- but, he decided, he was right. He could afford to take just one night off, just this once. Following Newt’s lead, he accepted a plastic cup of champagne and drank a cheers with the rest of the Shatterdome.

Newt needed to change his shirt. He realized this before he even finished his drink. He was covered in mud and sweat and baby kaiju fluids and a little bit of his own blood, and the shoulder had ripped at the seam. He needed a clean shirt. Except he didn’t care about how he looked, he never had. That was half the reason for his tattoos: that’s what he liked and damn anyone who dared to say something about it. But some part of him that sounded uncannily like Hermann insisted that he needed a clean shirt. At the very least this one was contaminated, and even if it wasn’t he looked even worse than usual. Newt frowned, downed the rest of his drink, and asked Hermann if he could borrow his slightly less stained jacket.

Hours later, the combination of alcohol and drift remnants was starting to get to him. Drifting with a kaiju brain once had been a shitty idea, but twice was downright insane. He saw that now; although he’d never admit it, Hermann had been right about that. His stomach rolled. Newt did his best to ignore it. It rolled again, carbonation combining with awful memories that no human never should’ve seen from a dimension that shouldn’t have existed. Newt shot a glance at Hermann a few feet away- always the stiff professional, he wished he’d give it a break for once- and a second later Hermann was guiding him by the elbow to the infirmary, scolding him under his breath all the way. Despite turning green, Newt found himself smiling.

Hermann would never admit it, but Newton had been right about the drift. It had been insane and dangerous, but it had won them the war. Of course, that research couldn’t be condoned under any circumstances; that said, he was something akin to proud of Newt and his accomplishment. But they were just colleagues, nothing more, so Hermann kept his distance during the celebrations. A nag in the back of his mind urged him to go closer, to talk to the man he’d shared a lab for nearly five years with because they were friends, weren’t they? He resisted the temptation, right up until Newt looked at him and Hermann felt an unsettling wave of nausea roll over him, and grudgingly he guided the man to the infirmary, chiding him and biting back anything more than a smile.

Drift compatibility takes years to build, as any technician can confirm. It takes time, and skill, and a great deal of luck, and not everyone can even do it. Inexperienced pilots never drift the first time, not completely; it takes months to settle into the familiarity of the bond they share. That is the accepted truth. Hermann and Newt will swear up and down that their communication comes from years of irritating cohabitation. And yet the arguments come, even when they’re alone, and it drives them crazy in what they’ll never admit is actually somewhat enjoyable.

\------------------------------

The war was over and the world ended. The old guard faded into the background as the world entered a new era, one without a lifetime of war and loss. The heroes were thanked, honored, and forgotten to everyone but themselves. With the jaegers gone, the Drift also faded- that was the general consensus. One couldn’t exist without the other. But an old man-a former marshall who saw the war through to the end- still hears his son clear as day when it’s quiet enough; two pilots, the last of their kind, are continents apart, but they still laugh at each other’s jokes and admire the beauty of the rebuilding world and spar every once in a while, shoes lined up at the mat; a scientist claims his colleague drives him crazy, that the five years spent working together were maddeningly infuriating and being in each other’s head was the worst part of it, and he’s glad to finally get out and away from that lab, but the nagging voice in the back of his head that sounds too much like his partner is a comfort, even when they argue. 

Everyone knows the Drift. It’s simply code and wires, nothing more. That is what everyone knows, and what everyone knows is wrong.


End file.
